Abstract: The crown structure,branching characteristics and leaf characteristics of Fokienia hodginsii and its variant types at different growth stages were studied in this paper.The results showed that their adaptation strategy to the environmental conditions was different.The crown length,crown width and crown ratio of F.hodginsii variant types were all smaller than F.hodginsii;while the tree height and diameter at breast height were all significantly larger than F.hodginsii.The overall bifurcation ratio,stepwise bifurcation ratio,length of the first order branch,ratio of branch diameter and leaf angle to horizon of F.hodginsii were all larger than its variant types.As for the F.hodginsii and its variant types,the difference of overall bifurcation ratio was non-significant at the seedling stage and sapling stage,and significant at thetree spanning stage;the difference of stepwise bifurcation ratio SBR_2:1 was significant at the seedling stage and tree spanning stage,and the stepwise bifurcation ratio of other growth stage were non-significant;the difference of length of the first order branch,ratio of branch diameter and leaf angle to horizon were all significant at the seedling stage,sapling stage and tree spanning stage.The leaf length of the F.hodginsii and its variant types was significantly different at the seedling stage;the leaf width and leaf length to width ratio of the F.hodginsii and its variant types were significantly different at the sapling stage and spanning tree stage;and the leaf area was significantly different at the seedling stage,sapling stage and tree spanning stage.

Key words: growth stage, Fokienia hodginii, branching characteristics, architectural analysis